A Locked Room Mystery
by EthoSloth
Summary: Houtarou finds out he has an uncle. What follows is a week of energy wasting and exhaustion. Honestly, his sister was enough eccentricity for the whole extended family. He hopes his uncle will agree.


**One-Shot**

**A Locked Room Mystery**

**AN/ I don't own House MD or Hyouka.**

Houtarou wasn't one to judge, but his uncle was an odd one to be sure. Apparently, they hadn't even known that they were related until Oreki-sama, the patriarch of their family admitted to some of his more adventurous experiences when he had stayed in the USA. It was a rather disgraceful affair, and his father had been both ashamed and excited when he had heard that his half-brother was a celebrated, if slightly eccentric doctor, and that he wasn't an only child. It had been one of those childish wishes that all only-child's shared, apparently, Chitanda came to mind.

After Oreki-sama passed, and his father - Oreki Houtarou's very own father - became the new patriarch of the family, Gregory House was invited to Kamiyama, to the Oreki Residence - the very place where Houtarou Oreki, and so, his father, Akihiro Oreki happened to live. He had responded, with about half of the formality that had been expected, that he would visit in March, at the dawn of spring.

Thus what followed were weeks of polished phrases in english, and practiced and very formal sentences, that neither Houtarou or Tomoe, who had returned home out of genuine curiosity, had bothered with, much to the exasperation of their father, who had gone on his tirades about how they should be more respectful.

"Sis, Daddy's gone mad hasn't he?" (terrible reference forgive me.)

"Hush, baby brother."

When House did arrive, it could be said that their poor fathers expectations were looked at with a steely glance and promptly thrown out of the window. He had arrived wearing what one would consider a Hawaian t-shirt, complete with eye-blinding flowery colours, and cane in hand. It seemed that in their haste, they had forgotten to check what 'eccentric' entailed.

Where his father had suffered however, his sister had flourished. Tomoe was as eccentric as it got, and it seemed that Uncle House ( The term sounded more absurd to Houtarou than he cared to express, ) wasn't about to stop that. He was sarcastic, lousy and seemingly unapologetic about it all. This was something Houtarou could appreciate.

He was set to stay for no longer than a week, although poor Akihiro had gone on record to say that if he wished, he could stay longer, as however strange his new brother might have been, Houtarou's father was just glad that he existed. Uncle Gregory or Uncle House, Oreki still hadn't managed to decide, had said that he would have happily stayed longer, but unfortunately, his job demanded he left.

During his stay, however, House had endowed Houtarou with a metric ton of strange advice, spoken in fluent Japanese, much to the shock of just about everyone. It turned out that House was fluent in many languages, and his talents had just about won over .

"What do you do around here when you get bored?" his uncle had gotten bored, one of the many times that he would over the seemingly short stay.

"I like being bored, so I don't do anything."

His Uncle looked at him, steely blue eyes considerate, with a frown on his face much too similar to Houtarou's own.

"God, that must be so boring."

"Yes, it is."

His uncle got off the couch, and stood right in front of Houtarou, who was still lazily lying on his back.

"Let's play a game."

Houtarou had never managed to raise a single eyebrow, so instead he opted to just narrow his eyes and deepen his natural frown to stare judgingly at his uncle.

"What's the game then?"

"A game of deduction," a game of intelligence then. Houtarou couldn't see why House would propose the idea to him, and not Tomoe.

"Good? Then let's start. Suppose you have a patient-"

"Age?"

"Middle aged. Slightly older actually. Comes to you and says that you have to treat him. He's panicked. Sweating profusely."

"So… Get him admitted? A checkup? A scan? Tests? Am I to magically assume how the Hospital runs?"

House looked amused.

"Only problem is he's got a gun. Seems like a normal office worker at first, no record of criminal activity, a clean record. Patient has seen seven doctors, each has left him hanging. He says he's always tired, unable to sleep."

"Insomnia?"

"Not the cause, maybe a side effect. Oh, did I mention he has a handful of hostages? Myself included. We're locked in a room, no access to most of our procedures."

Oreki thought for a moment before it hit him.

"A locked-room mystery... "

House smirked.

"Well, your sister happened to mention the fact that you're rather proficient at solving mysteries. So, impress me."

Houtarou reached for a notebook that was lying on the table beside the couch. House obliged him with a pen.

"So, according to you, a man walks into the hospital with a gun? Or gets the gun at the Hospital. Either way, he has a gun, takes a few hostages. He ends up in your office how?"

House might have moved to say something but Houtarou raised a hand.

"Wait - don't answer that! Rhetorical question."

House watched in interest, his scrutinizing blue eyes judging his nephew with precision.

"So - I assume he asked for a doctor? One of the hostages had to know you then? To take him to you instead of other doctors? Assuming that this was during the day and you weren't the only doctor with a nightshift."

"Morning. Around 12PM."

Houtarou tapped the pen frustratedly.

"So - he gets in to the office - It's locked, and - he has a few hostages, one which may be your colleague."

"He's deranged, or just desperate, neither of which are good for anyone in the office. You have a sedative there? You'd probably try to take him out."

"If he's desperate, he's not gonna let you give him something without knowing exactly what it is. He might not believe you then. Let's call the culprit 'X'."

House was interested in making X a 'culprit' and not a 'patient' but it didn't seem to matter to Houtarou.

"You must have a phone right? You can get someone else's opinion, although I doubt you would do that for some reason."

House snorted. Wilson couldn't believe it either.

"The gun. The gun is dangerous. If you made a failed attempt at restraining him, he would lash out."

With that being said, Houtarou's eyes widened as he looked up to House.

"He shot one of the hostages?"

It shouldn't have been as shocking as it was, but Houtarou wasn't used to these situations, so it was only natural. Only someone like House could get used to it, after all, he practically lived for these sorts of cases.

House nodded.

"Not fatal however. The victim was allowed to be escorted out of the office."

"By this time, I'm guessing you had figured it out?"

House looked.

"Well obviously."

"So you negotiated for the gun?"

House might have been internally amused at his being suicidal being mentioned as 'negotiation' in a different context, but he didn't show it.

"Well, that wasn't as bad as I had expected it to be. Say, what was the diagnosis then?"

Oreki sighed as he put down the notebook, tired after a long five minutes of work.

"Lung Cancer."

Houtarou nodded but -

"... wait what?"

* * *

**I hope you enjoyed it.**


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